Sealed With a Curse as Sharp as a Knife
by GuiltyRed
Summary: Sephiroth, Zack - catalyst. The library sequence in Nibelheim, redux.


Title: Sealed With a Curse as Sharp as a Knife

**Title:** Sealed With a Curse as Sharp as a Knife  
**Author: **GuiltyRed**  
Rating: **PG13  
**Warnings:** language  
**Word count: **670**  
Prompt:** Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core, Zack, Sephiroth: catalyst - _"I know an Ancient, Seph"_  
**Summary: **The library sequence in Nibelheim, redux.  
**A/N:** Title stolen from "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai" : _"Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife...doomed is your soul, and damned is your life!"_ Hell of a quote, and hauntingly appropriate. This almost begs for a longer story…

Books tumbled from their shelves lie like broken moths upon the floor. Unmindful of the debris, Sephiroth paces frantically, trampling their spines into the dust. Words burn in his head: words spoken by former friends, words read from deceitful papers, words whispered by a mystery.

Zack hangs in the doorway, caught between a need to act and the instinctive urge to flee.

_**"**__You were born out of the Jenova Project; the greatest monster of all."_

Words spoken by a raving madman, acid upon my soul.  
  
_"The Jenova Project…Jenova cells… You've never met your mother and the only thing you ever heard was her name, right? Trying to remember what she looked like, painful is it?"  
_  
Sephiroth begins to laugh, a low sound that has more in common with desperate weeping than any form of mirth.

Unable to watch without trying to make contact, Zack clears his throat.

"Who's there?" Sephiroth whirls and fixes him with a poisonous glare. "Traitor."

Zack takes a deep breath and strides forward. "Look, I know that Genesis said a lot of things. You've been locked up in here for days!"

_Days… "Jenova Project S… The Gift of the Goddess is handed down."_

"…the perfect monster…"  
  
Voice bitter and accusing, Sephiroth rounds on Zack. He brandishes the notebook like a weapon. "Jenova. Project." Sephiroth spits the words like bullets, his lip curled in a feral snarl. "The project was designed to synthetically recreate the 'Ancients,' ones with the powers of the Cetra. I…was manufactured."

Zack frowns. Ancients – he's heard that word recently, though not from Sephiroth. The ShinRa Company was trying to re-create the Cetra? "But, they already know where the last one lives!" The words are out before Zack's brain can halt his tongue.

Sephiroth pauses, eyes narrowed to slits. "Say again?"

Zack swallows, all too aware of how close Death now stands. "I thought Genesis was just babbling, you know, raging and ranting at you because he couldn't make his own pain stop."

"The last one, Fair!" Sephiroth slams the notebook down and grabs the younger man by his harness, shaking him like a doll. "What are you telling me?"

"You're not the only one." Zack waits until those murderous eyes widen slightly before adding, "I know an Ancient, Seph –"

"You lie!"

"I do not! Look, I know you've been fucked with, Goddess knows all of SOLDIER are pretty much screwed! But I swear to you, I have no reason to lie!"

His expression now one of animal cunning, Sephiroth leans in close and whispers, "What oath could you possibly swear that I would believe, human?"

Zack closes his eyes, seeking calm. In that instant, he knows his answer. "I swear upon the flowers in the broken church."

"What?"

"Below Plate, in the Midgar slums," Zack whispers, "there is a church, and in that church is a girl who grows flowers where nothing _can_ grow." He opens his eyes now, meeting Sephiroth's piercing stare. "I swear upon the flowers of the Ancient: you are not alone."

Slowly, as if recovering from a nightmare, Sephiroth releases his hold and allows Zack to regain his footing. "I'm…not? A monster? But Mother…"

"We'll go to the church, all right? She can help you, Seph. She's no monster, and neither are you."

"Genesis believed my cells, Jenova's cells, could heal him, or at least make him a healthy monster," Sephiroth murmurs thoughtfully. "It appears I might be contagious. Imagine that!"

Zack steps closer, reaching out to his friend. "Come on. Everything's going to be all right."

Faster than thought, Sephiroth whirls, Masamune bare in his grip. The sword flashes up, drawing a line of crimson across Sephiroth's bare chest before reversing direction to carve a delicate arc across Zack's bicep. Before Zack can react the sword is back in its sheath and Sephiroth is gripping his jaw with crushing strength.

"She can save me? I certainly hope so, because if you are wrong and Genesis is right after all, you now share my cells, and my fate."


End file.
